I’m just catching up with this story from the Salt Lake Tribune: During [Utah] Gov. Gary Herbert’s visit to Blanding, one of the poorest regions of the state, residents pleaded with him to keep open the Edge of the Cedars Museum State Park. The ancestral Puebloan site and official archaeological repository houses one of the largest…Continue Reading…
So on the one hand, we see the U.S. military accepting of climate change and coexisting peaceably with endangered species. On the other hand, there’s Utah: a bastion of inanity, where that ol timey sagebrush mentality never dies.
Last year, evidence from a DNA test was thought to have solved one of Utah’s oldest cold cases: the 1934 disappearance of Everett Ruess. National Geographic Adventure published a big, splashy exclusive on the 75-year old mystery. But some observers, most notably Kevin Jones, Utah’s state archaeologist, had reason to question the findings in the…Continue Reading…
The Utah legislature is fond of symbolic gestures. The latest is a beaut. It’s a resolution from the chamber’s Natural Resources Committee, urging the EPA not to proceed with plans to regulate greenhouse gases until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated. Mike Noel, a…Continue Reading…
A big reason I’m drawn to the Southwest is for its well preserved archaeology. But that doesn’t mean it’s well protected, much less appreciated by native residents or politicians. That said, a cruel irony is that most new sites on public and state land are only discovered when a highway or shopping center or gas…Continue Reading…
Remember those controversial Resource Management Plans in Utah that the BLM rammed through during Bush’s final months? I covered the story here. The federal land plans must be on increasingly shaky ground because the Utah State Legislature has drafted a resolution expressing its strong support for the way BLM handled them. My favorite line in…Continue Reading…
Not long after I posted this about a Utah state legislative resolution to keep hydraulic fracturing unregulated, I got wind of a similar effort underway in Wyoming. What a coincidence: the separate bills are moving through their respective chambers today. Could this be the stirrings of another sagebrush rebellion? Last week, Mike Noel, a Utah…Continue Reading…
The Utah state legislature is getting odder by the day. Recently, it passed a bill that prohibited wildlife from being injected with birth control substances–except in special circumstances and then only by authorized personnel. I explained the reason here. Today, a senate committee of the state legislature is taking up consideration of a bill that…Continue Reading…
If the animal rights crowd thought they could skulk around the Utah wilds and sterilize the big game, they better think twice, because the hunters there are on to them: According to the AP: Some sportsmen have expressed worry that animal rights groups will begin giving birth control to deer so their population levels will…Continue Reading…